(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lawn mower with a structure for vertically movably suspending a blade housing from a vehicle body through a raising and lowering link mechanism and allowing the blade housing to tilt relative to the vehicle body.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Examples of lawn mowers as noted above are disclosed in Applicant's prior Japanese utility model application published as Kokai No. 63-98010 and patent application published as Kokai No. 63-226202. These lawn mowers have a grass cutting unit suspended from lift arms through suspender links, the cutting unit being vertically movable by raising and lowering the lift arms.
The interior of a blade housing and cutting blades therein are inspected, serviced and cleaned periodically. For this purpose, the cutting unit is raised to an upper limit to expose the bottom of the blade housing.
However, with the prior structures disclosed in the above publications, because the cutting unit is suspended at both front and rear ends thereof by the suspender links, the cutting unit cannot be raised to an extent to expose the housing bottom sufficiently although, seen as a whole, the front end is raised higher than the rear end. Such a limitation renders inspection, servicing and other maintenance operations difficult or practically impossible.
Under such circumstances, the lawn mower is parked, for example, at a height on a terrain having different levels, with the cutting unit at the front of the mower extending over a lower tract. In this state, the operator in an upward facing posture on the lower tractor carries out a maintenance operation for the interior of the blade housing. Such a practice has the inconveniences that the maintenance operation can be carried out only at limited locations, that the upwardly facing posture maintained constantly tends to tire the operator, and that the operation itself is not efficient.